Loving an alien, part 2

by Suw on July 2, 2014

Read Part 1. Also, please note that immigration processes vary from country to country, and in the UK they vary enormously over time as the Government thinks up new ways to torment immigrants. The below advice should not be thought of as comprehensive, nor always applicable to your personal situation, but is based on my experience of UK and US immigration processes, for whatever that’s worth. If in doubt, see an immigration lawyer.

When I was 16, I probably would have laughed in your face if you’d said that I’d marry. And an American, to boot! You’re ‘avin’ a larf, mate. And even if I had believed you, it wouldn’t have done me any good without the advice I am about to give you.

If you have fallen in love with an alien, if an alien has fallen in love with you, if you’re even flirting with a foreigner or considering going on holiday or working abroad, then there are are a few little things you should do, right now, before they become necessary. This may seem silly, but trust me, if you ever need this information you’ll be very, very glad that you spent a little time preparing.

1. Make a list of everywhere you’ve ever lived

Literally, everywhere. Even those three month stints you spent at home in between years at university. In order to fill in some immigration forms, you need an unbroken record of everywhere you have ‘established a residence’ since you were 16, which for many people means ‘since forever’. It’s a tedious job, but start now and keep the document up to date and when you move house.

It took me hours on Google Maps and on the phone with my parents to reconstruct my residential history going back to, eventually, 1976. Luckily, I’d recently spent time on Google Maps finding the house I’d lived in back in Sydney, Australia, when I was 18, so that shaved about an hour off the process. But there was still a lot of “Do you have the address for that place with the bonkers landlord?”, though given that the majority of my landlords have been either bonkers or total assholes that didn’t narrow it down much. Remembering the walks home from the tube station helped too, but it was a tremendous stress at a time when I really didn’t need any more of that particular evil.

You’ll need the date (at least month and year) you moved in and moved out, and the full address.

2. Police certificates

Some visas require a police certificate for every country you’ve lived in for more than a year, no matter how long ago, and for any UK address you’ve lived in during the previous X years. It’s an easy process in the UK, but do not put it off once you get to that stage because it can take time, and the longer you put it off the more you delay your own visa.

If you have ever lived in another country for more than a year, start researching now how to get the appropriate document so that when the issue comes up you know what to do. The particulars of the process may change in the intervening years, but the basics won’t.

I only found out about the requirement for a police certificate for other countries late on in the visa process, and had I spent another three months in Australia, I would have had to get a certificate from them. That could have delayed my visa for months, which would really have piled on the stress.

3. Make a list of everywhere you’ve ever travelled

When Kevin had to do this, we spent a long time with his passports and calendar listing everywhere he’s been for the last ten years. That was relatively easy, if tedious, because an American travelling in Europe gets a stamp in their passport every time they enter a country, and usually when they leave too. (For some bizarre reason, the UK doesn’t do exit stamps.)

For me, it would have been a disaster if I wasn’t so zealous about putting things in my calendar, as a lot of my travel was within the EU, meaning that I don’t get any stamps in my passport at all. But with my calendar and my propensity for booking everything online and keeping electronic copies of tickets, I could draw up that list.

You’ll need the departure and return dates, plus city and country. Make a note of which flights are overnight – I tend to count duration in nights not days, which makes it easier to deal with nights spent in the air and the crossing of the date line (not that I’ve ever done that, mind!).

4. Check your vaccination record

Some countries require you to be vaccinated against specific diseases, so it’s a good idea to make sure that your medical records are up to date with your childhood jabs. You can get a print out of your vaccination history to give to the medical examiner.

You may need to get additional vaccinations in order to complete the immigration process: I had to have an MMR jab because I hadn’t had a mumps vaccination as a child (it didn’t exist then). As an adult you can get MMR free on the NHS, though I’ve heard that some GP surgeries are reluctant to give it. Don’t take no for an answer!

5. Check your medical records

Some countries require you to tell them your medical history, which sounds like a trivially easy thing right up until the point where you’re in the middle of the medical and being grilled about events that were so long ago that you’re a bit hazy on the details.

In the UK, you have the right to see your medical records and it should cost no more than £10. You are “entitled to receive a response no later than 40 days after your application is received and any relevant fee has been paid”, so start this application sooner rather than later. This is especially important if you have any history of mental illness, including depression, at all, because you could be asked quite detailed questions about what happened, when, and what medication you were given, if any. If you know exactly what is in your medical records, then you can be much more accurate in your replies to questions.

Be aware that, depending on the country’s requirements, if you have any history of mental illness, including depression, you may need to get a letter from your GP confirming that what you say is true. That can add a month or more on to the process, depending on how efficient your GP is. Again, do not delay talking to your GP if you run into this problem, as the sooner you ask them, the sooner your letter will get to the head of the queue.

At my GP’s, the process was that the GP writing the letter rang me up, asked for further information about when my brief period of depression was, read out what the records said (very, very little, as it turned out), and then wrote the letter. When it was ready I picked it up, read it through and had the opportunity to discuss it with the GP if I had wanted to, so they didn’t communicate directly with the embassy medical panel. This was a huge reassurance, because it was very stressful not knowing either what my medical record said (I didn’t check first) and not knowing what my GP would say.

6. Get your household bills in joint names, and keep them all

For Kevin’s Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK we needed to prove that we had a legitimate relationship, not a marriage of convenience, and to do that the government wanted us to produce six utility bills in both our names from the previous two years. What wasn’t in the guidance was that they were expecting those bills to be evenly spread out over those two years. Our happened to come in three clusters, which they said wasn’t good enough.

As I said in my last post about immigration, their logic is just insane. Do they really believe that a couple would move in together, get joint bills then split up for 10 months before moving in together again to get more bills, then split up, and then do it all again? Seriously? On what planet does that happen? Especially as we had at that point been married a while. It’s just mindboggling that people would think like that.

But, we dealt with that bit of jobsworthing by adhering to the next rule, and it is a rule that you should live by no matter what sort of visa you are applying for, no matter what country:

7. Over-document

When the immigration official asked for more bills, Kevin whipped out a sheaf of papers about half an inch thick, and the objection to the timing of our bills magically evaporated. We had been advised to over-document, and it was advice we were happy that we followed.

In short, document everything, and keep everything. Get as many bills and other official proofs of your relationship as possible. Every time you get a relevant email, or fill in a form online, keep a print copy. Two copies. Make photocopies of all your official documents. If you have any phone conversations (although I have not spoken to any officials on the phone for my visa), make detailed notes including date and time of call.

It’s also a good idea to log every action you take, if only for your own peace of mind. Note when you submit forms, when you send emails, when you get documents through the post. The visa process takes ages, but it feels as if it takes aeons. It is good to be able to look at your log and realise that it was only last week that you submitted that form, not last month, and so the fact that you’ve not heard anything is not a bad sign.

Non-EU immigration is very, very hard work. If you can afford a specialise immigration lawyer, then that’s certainly a help, but many people can’t. The rhetoric of the media, especially in the UK, would have most people believe that all you need to do is turn up and bingo, it’s all good. But that’s not true. There are a lot of forms to fill, a lot of money to pay over, a lot of tedious information gathering and underneath it all the lurking suspicion that immigration officials can be capricious and that your application may fail for reasons entirely opaque to you.

If you are in the process of, or about start, any immigration process, then good luck. And if you’ve been through it, what do you wish you’d known before you started?

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